Poppycock Abroad

“During a journey on which our luggage went missing not once, but twice – “

“No more time for “A Room with a View”, my dears, we’re boarding!” Molly snapped up Emily’s Forster and pulled Maude up from her chair in the VIP boarding lounge at St. Pancras station. “Are we all here?”

“I think so – where’s Agatha got off to?” Emily tucked her abandoned book back into the vintage steamer trunk marked “BOOKS”, and all three of them had to sit on it to get it properly shut again. “Oh, there – nosing about the wine, I see.” Emily scooped the large white expanse of fluff that was crouched snuffling about the edges of the wine crate, and draped the cat in her usual place, adorning Emily’s alabaster shoulders. It did make a pretty contrast.

“Tickets – Maudie, I believe that’s your department?” Maude produced the requisite envelope and, trailed by a number of luggage attendants, they set off for the first leg of their grand adventure.

***

The Eurostar from London to Venice was lovely, but then, as the happy trio made the trip some three or four times a year, it was hardly the part of the trip they anticipated most breathlessly. At first tempted to have their departure coincide with Carnival, the girls were anxious to start, and thus decided on an autumn journey. They spent their first night, as usual, at Daniele’s, and dined, of course, at Ae Oche, where Maude was stealthily working her way, one by one, through the menu of 88 varieties of pizza. You win some, you lose some, and number 44, walnut and gorgonzola, was declared an instant success. Molly thought sadly that Mr. Denning wouldn’t have liked it at all, being frightfully averse to cheese products of any kind. She suppressed a small whimper, thinking how his financial conference would bring him to Venice the following week. Emily and Maude of course intuitively knew why she had suddenly become quiet, bade Gino to bring out the customary first night tiramisu, and Molly was sufficiently cheered to help herself to an enormous portion.

The rest of the evening was spent nibbling gelato at a special private Vivaldi concert at Santa Maria della Salute. The city was eternally grateful after Poppycock had issued a sequel novella to Daphne du Maurier’s “Don’t Look Now”, in which they established, in a dazzling imitation of her inimitable style, that Venice was indeed NOT crawling with sinister dwarves and elderly women with blank pupils. Tourism had spiked 17 percent, and Poppycock now displayed on its walls the key to the city.

The girls rose languidly at 10 the next morning, greeting a crisp, bright day. They were taken by gondola (no flashy water-taxis for Poppycock) to Santa Lucia railway station, where the special Venice Simpleton-Orient-Express was waiting to pick up the only three passengers (four if you count Agatha, and five with the framed photograph of Mr. Denning hidden away in Molly’s overnight case.) Each of the girls was to have their own double compartment, complete with 24-hour steward service. They fairly skipped from room to room as the train pulled gracefully out of the station, then retreated to their separate chambers for the first delivery of afternoon tea. They each selected their first meal from the night’s menu, and although their were separate dining cars for each culinary style (French, Italian, and Chinese), and each girl as per their wont selected a different style, they were not content to spend their first dinner apart, and the battalion of Italian waiters was obliged to troop back and forth numerous times that night, carrying the veritable banquet from the kitchen car to Maude’s rooms. But they were all so handsome and good-natured, and they didn’t mind the extra work a bit for the literary ladies of Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd.

All in all, it was a delightful start to a trip that was to carry the girls through some romantic ports of call – Vienna, Rome, Prague, Paris (Emily was delighted), a dip back through London, Krakow, Istanbul, and Budapest. When they were not enjoying the stunning views from their private cars, indeed often while still abed, they were luxuriating in a place where not even Maude could be reached by telephone. And although they really did miss Mr. Periwinkle, and take care to send him postcards nearly every day, with the nicest stamps they could find, they were pleasantly surprised at the freedom afforded one when there is not the threat of four or five manuscripts in the mail every day. The girls were free, for once, to work on their own writings. As it was still a mystery as to who the whole extravagant gift of the trip was actually from, the girls developed a pet theory that their agents had pooled their resources to send them away – all three had pending multi-million Euro deals. Molly was writing the sequel to the instant classic “The Quirky Girl” – a stunning bildungsroman of an awkward girl coming of age in 1920’s Brooklyn, Emily was furiously working on an ambitious follow-up to the best-selling “A to Z Game”, which centered around a murderous, obsessive-compulsive academic in the 18th century who structured his speech alphabetically, and Maudie was still toiling over her memoir, “I was an Eight-Year-Old Bride”.

But they certainly didn’t spend all of their time at work. In Vienna they had an elaborate dramatic evening in which Molly, as Dr. Faustus, ran through the quaint streets being pursued by Emily, as the Devil. Maude was never a fan of Marlowe, and played gin rummy with one of the waiters on the train. In Rome the roles were switched, and it was Molly as Brutus who chased Emily as Julius Caesar around the old aqueducts. Maude played the rest of the conspirators. In Prague they all wore black and skulked around the Café Kafka with casks of cheap wine. Molly insisted on wearing a bowler hat. Paris saw more skulking, as everyone went Zola-esque in the vilest little alleys they could find. Which of course meant that they dressed up all the more when it was time for dinner. In London they all stayed in and read Dickens aloud in their best accents while the Italian waiters went out on the town. In Poland they settled for some fairly incomprehensible Czesław Miłosz poetry, and drank an excess of beer. (Except for Maude, of course.) Everything they’d read about Istanbul was so controversial that they decided to just wear caftans and drink spiced tea all day long, shuffling about in little pointy tipped shoes. Maude tried a hookah for the first time. (It was only jasmine.) And their last stop, Budapest, consisted of many dramatic readings of “Dracula”, running back and forth across the Danube.

And suddenly, after these indolent days wafting their way through Europe in luxury, it was time to go home. Truly, it was for the best, for even though they were having a wonderful time, they were bogged down with books, and they knew that Mr. Periwinkle would surely have a mountain of manuscripts requiring their perusal and assistance. So, with only slightly heavy hearts, the trio from Poppycock found themselves back at St. Pancras, where they wearily caught the first cab home, knowing that tomorrow, bright and early at 10:45 or perhaps 11, Poppycock would once again be open for business. And although they still didn’t know who their benevolent benefactor was, they were eternally grateful for the beautiful respite they had been granted from the day-to-day responsibilities of wordsmithery for the finest authors of the age.

Two stories with the same beginning.

Sun Lee's father owned a little chandelier shop in Chinatown and called himself, rather bumptiously, a Lightolier. Only a few blocks from the churning marketplace of Canal Street, where vendors aggressively peddled handbags, watches, bean sprouts and turtles, Mr. Lee's Lightatorium was nestled on Brite Street, a mini district dedicated solely to lighting. "All your lighting needs" were met on Brite Street, and if your lighting needs furthermore involved a few extra pounds of crystal beading dripping aristocratically from your ceiling, Mr. Lee's Lightatorium: Your Chandelier Heaven was the place for you.

An only child with an imagination can go far. An only child with an imagination who grows up in a chandelier shop on Brite Street can go farther. And so it was in the tinkling glitter of dozens of low-hung or propped-up chandeliers that Sun Lee learned to play with his matchbox cars or assemble his puzzles without causing any undue vibrations. The rampant fragility of the chandelier shop imposed upon the child a deep placidity that worried and irritated his father. Sun seemed to believe that disturbing even one of the thousands of dangling prisms was a Thing Not To Be Done above all Things Not To Be Done and he had consequently learned to walk so weightlessly and talk so breathlessly that he often seemed to disappear altogether.

His father, the Lightolier of Brite Street, did not take his title... lightly. He did not trouble himself about his neighbor shopkeepers, who sold floor or desk lamps. As a purveyor of light in its most exquisite domestic manifestation, (he was not without proper regard for the sun after all) Mr. Lee regarded himself as a nobleman of his trade, and instead of any earthly competitors, his professional adversaries were dust, shadows, clouds, and sunglasses worn indoors; anything that would diminish the shimmering, delicate sparkle of his beloved chandeliers. While not encouraging customers to fondle the chandeliers, Mr. Lee continuously dusted and swept the shop. Sun often watched his father's dusting routine from his corner, nestled beneath and between the feminine curves of three chandeliers.

To Sun, whose mother had died the year he was born, the chandeliers were all females. They tittered and gossiped as he imagined women would (you couldn't bump one without setting them all in a tizzy) and they were of course endlessly vain. No matter how invisible he became, napping beneath their crystal fringes, or staring up their crystal skirts at their secret bulbs, they would find some other stimuli to set them chattering: heavy trucks tackling potholes, slamming doors, and passing cars that bled hip hop bass lines for miles. To all these, the ladies of the Lightatorium shivered and murmured in response. Sun, as any man would do, only half listened to their conversations, but he wouldn't give up their company for anything.

***

One day, as Sun ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in his corner, safely tucked beneath and between his three iridescent aunts, a tall, brisk woman holding a little dog entered the shop. The chandeliers quivered soundlessly, as if preening for the visitor. Mr. Lee hid his feather duster and adopted a messianic gesture of invitation: open, half-stretched arms, to all who were willing to come to the Lightolier.

"Yes hello how are you today? Would you like to see some chandeliers today?" Thus Mr. Lee began his courtship of the tall, brisk lady. She delayed her reply, even twirling once to get a full view of the shop before making eye contact. She took enough time to wordlessly establish herself as the one in control of the conversation.

"Hi there." She extended her free hand to the Lightolier. "I'm Inez Gilberto, art director, SheShe magazine. I would like to use your shop for a photo shoot, Mr..."

"Lee! Mr. Lee!"

"Mr. Lee. You have a great space here, I can't tell you how unique this is." Inez reached out to pet one of the lamps as if it were her dog. "Are you interested in renting out your shop as is for a weekend? We can make sure you're fully compensated for your time. I'm thinking the shoot will be sometime early next month."

Mr. Lee was visibly pleased with the proposal, since he had always known his Lightatorium was a place like no other, and he accepted on the spot. Sun peeped out from his corner. Streaks of peanut butter and jelly elongated his mouth (he was one of those perplexing children who eats a sandwich from the middle out) but his frown was still discernible. He could not say why, but he knew it was not a good idea to give the whole shop over to strangers for an entire weekend. He imagined he felt the chandeliers stiffen in shock, but the Lightolier was shaking Inez's hand as he walked her to the door. Her little dog yipped pointlessly.

The weeks before the photo shoot were particularly strained for the Lightolier and his little son. The boy had meekly tried to express his disapproval of the scheme, but words did not usually serve him well and, even if they had, he couldn't put his presentiment about leaving the shop into words. (He didn't even know about the word "presentiment.") So the boy took his quiet revenge by disappearing when wanted and appearing when unwanted. Mr. Lee's days became a series of turning around and leaping backward with a gasp at the undetected presence of his silent son, followed by hours of uneasy solitude while the boy was secreted away somewhere in the chandeliers.

On the day of the photo shoot, Mr. Lee proposed a trip to Coney Island.

"Wouldn't you like to take a ride on the Wonder Wheel?" Mr. Lee directed his question to the room in general, since his son was hidden somewhere in the crystal jungle. The chandeliers did not respond. "Alright now, that's enough. The magazine people are coming today, so let's take a little holiday..."

Just then three young girls entered the Lightatorium. They were as sallow and boneless as a trio of jellyfish, with their arms floating on invisible air currents, and they each wore a magnificent headdress of feathers and netting. From Sun's point of view --the ground-- their feet were all straps and spikes. His view of their bodies was obscured by a shelf of chandeliers, but when he looked up he saw only the remains of mangled birds in nets. He could easily imagine what came between the deadly spikes on bottom and the mess of feathers on top. He screamed from his corner. The girls screamed. The chandeliers vibrated. Mr. Lee brandished his duster and tried, paradoxically, to silence the other screams with his own. Inez Gilberto burst through the door with a shout just as a slow-moving ambulance took to its siren, and her little dog ran loose through the shop, yipping and howling luxuriantly. Sun took a breath and began a new scream, then the phone rang, a photographer's assistant dropped a floodlight, and one of the models stepped on another model's foot with her spiky shoe, giving the latter model's scream more conviction. Following Sun's lead, the screams rose in pitch. He suddenly chose to appear very quickly and with a lunging motion from his corner, prompting a more frenzied chorus of shrieks from the models. Meanwhile, the ambulance siren had not yet subsided. Inez stomped her feet, Mr. Lee made a dash for his son, and the little dog continued its heroic refrain of ecstatic yelps. A decorative mirror shattered and burst off the wall.

Reaching for his son's collar, Mr. Lee tripped over the little dog, tumbled forward, and grabbed a few strands hanging crystal beads as he fell. With an anguished roar, foreseeing in a millisecond all that was about to occur, the Lightolier pulled down his own centerpiece chandelier, the largest and most glorious grand dame of all. Thousands of crystal beads rained from on high just before the carcass of the thing descended with a ignominious crash upon Inez Gilberto's little dog and Mr. Lee's left leg.

***

Mr. Lee's Lightatorium did not feature as a romantic backdrop in the next issue of SheShe magazine after all. After the mess of crystal, dog, and feather was cleared away, the idea of a photo shoot simply receded. The same ambulance that had contributed to the fatal cacophony took Mr. Lee to the emergency room, where his his leg was set and put in a cast. The little dog, valiant to the end, was not so lucky. Sun dusted and swept the shop for days after the incident in order to appease his father's angry silence, but he remained convinced that he had somehow done the right thing, despite the loss of the grandmother chandelier.

-- Professor De Busque


Sun Lee's father owned a little chandelier shop in Chinatown and called himself, rather bumptiously, a lightolier. Lying on his tummy looking out at the rain by the front window on Saturday morning, two classmates turned up with their parents, and ran around the cramped shop sneering “Light-o-leeeeeeeeeeeeer, drunk on beeeeeeeeeeeeer.” Sun tired to concentrate on his Batman comic. A tear squeezed out from under his eyelid, but he was able to catch it in his cupped palm before it smeared the precious pages. He whispered under his breath, “Doesn’t drink beer.”

His father was painfully proud of the shop, prouder of it than he would ever be of Sun. Sun’s mother doted on him, smothered him with affection, really, but it didn’t make up for the fact that his father regarded him as something of a burden, like an unsightly mole. Not that Sun was unattractive. His mother paraded him up and down the seafood and vegetable markets, and her middle-aged housewife friends would jump out from behind his stalls to express their jealousy for having such a beautiful little boy. Most all of them knew about his hand, but as he was always careful to keep it in his pocket, his father was the only one who made him feel badly about it. And it had been his fault.

Sun had been four. He was so enraptured with his father’s work. He spent hours at the store with him while his mother sold bootleg dvds for a little extra cash to send home to her village. Not only did his father sell chandeliers, he also repaired them, and before the accident, he crafted them himself. Back then, on Thursday nights, he rented a small studio above a poultry vendor, which he roughly outfitted for his newest hobby – glass blowing. Since building and business regulations were never enforced, he had set up a rough kiln, and there was always an open fire with various ominous-looking cauldrons scattered about. Sun’s mother had never visited, so she didn’t suspect what evils were lurking there, ready to snatch her precious boy’s perfect hand.

And so it was, one July evening without the slightest breath of a breeze, that Sun rose sleepily from the pallet his father kept in the corner for his naps. Sun really should have slept for another 45 minutes at least, but the relentless stillness of the air had unsettled him. His father was counting on that much more time alone, so when he swung around with the molten piece of glass clinging to the edge of a stick, the last thought in his mind was that Sun might be there. As he turned, Sun in his drowsiness thought his father was offering him something to play with, and reached out to grab the glowing end. After, there wasn’t much to be done, and Sun’s right hand would always be a twisted, useless lump of flesh.

So it was understandable to other people why Sun’s father was a bit stand-offish in his presence, why he constantly nagged his wife to have another child. But it wasn’t understandable to Sun. He just wished that his father would play with him again, or look at him when he spoke to him, instead of at what used to be his hand. But he preferred his lamps and his lampshades, his lamp-stands and lamp-wires. Sun spent countless hours in the shop while his mother toiled away at various trades. He was happiest when the lightolier’s was busy, because then he could curl up in his corner with his comics. He hated when other kids came in. He wasn’t teased or bullied, he was ignored, which was far worse, because he couldn’t even try to stand up for himself if no one could see him. He was probably happiest walking through the market with his mother, basking in the adoration of her frumpy friends whose sons were dim-witted and plain.

It had been two years since the accident, and Sun was not happy. It was very gloomy and gray outside, and apart from the two piggish classmates and their parents, no one had come in or out of the store. Sun pushed himself up from his nest of pillows and blankets and stood in front of the window, nudging it sadly with his toe before leaning his face against the glass, the coursing raindrops blurring from too close up. He heard his father pad softly up behind him. He walked with the silence of a cat, and was persistently scaring Sun’s mother around the apartment. Sun sighed, waiting for his father to stand for a moment and then retreat without a word. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and looked up, startled.

“Certainly is a wet day,” Sun’s father said as he looked out across Canal Street. He didn’t look down, but if he had, he would have seen his son’s face turned up towards him like a pristine orchid, shining brighter and prettier than any of the glitzy lamps the lightolier had on offer.


-- Professor P'ohlig

The Cautionary Tale of Diddle and Dandle

Dandle and Diddle were out one day
When Numbers Buckley did come their way.
"Pardon me, my fine young sirs,
but do you like my cowboy spurs?"
Numbers bowed and tipped his hat
then ambled on and that was that.

Well, that was that til' Tuesday or so,
Til' Dandle got an itch on his toe.
He needed something to scratch it good,
And all he had was his cashmere hood.
"Those spurs would be the perfect notion,
To settle all this damned commotion.'

Diddle, too, had caught the craze
And fell into a deep malaise
Wishing he had spurs of gold,
Spurs that glistened as they rolled!
He fashioned some from tin and wire
As Dandle watched in secret ire.

“My toe! My toe!” poor Dandle cried.
”This itch has got my brain all fried.”
He moped and lazed about the house
And Diddle wished he was a mouse
To slither into Buckley's hovel
And knock him out with Dandle's shovel.

But Numbers Buckley was a giant beast
7 or 8 feet tall, at least.
Diddle and Dandle were meager chaps
Their blows, to Numbers, would be but taps
Still they yearned for spurs all day
Together they dwindled nearly all away.

Buckley heard the story around
Of those lads, minds as of late unsound,
All for the love of his golden spurs.
His mind, it clicked like a motor whirrs.
He decided to give those spurs away
And so, he thought, to save the day.

But Diddle and Dandle weren't satisfied
With one spur each, with wounded pride;
They fought each other to the death
For each assumed the other spur best.
And so our Poppycock fable ends:
Don't love your spurs more than your friends.

Poppycock Takes a Trip

“Oh, that’s just it!” Emily shouted, throwing a suspiciously stained manuscript to the floor. “I need a vacation!”

Molly looked up from a scarf she’d just begun, and Maude from the Murakami draft she was going over for spelling errors. They were both startled, as Emily never raised her sweet voice, and she certainly never threw books on the floor.

“What’s that you, erm, were working on?” Molly swept Agatha up from her perch on Emily’s desk and draped her around Emily’s shoulders. Maude was ready with the wine.

“I just don’t think it’s right that, now that Mr. Thompson is dead, now they decide that maybe “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” isn’t so fun after all. Not that they’re wrong, it’s absolute twaddle, but I don’t see how we can go changing it round now after the poor man’s been shot up into space! Oh, do let’s take a trip, girls.”

Molly smiled and gave Maude a nod, and Maude nipped through to the house. Molly tossed Emily’s lap blanket to where she was nearly prostrate on her fainting couch, and then tucked herself neatly into her own. “I’m so glad you’ve come round, Emily, we’ve been waiting absolutely ages for you to suggest it.”

Maude wobbled back in on bare feet (she never could get used to the idea of wearing shoes, no matter how many colds she got or socks Molly knitted), her arms laden with a tower of books. She deposited half with Professor De Busque, and half with Professor P’ohlig. She then alit on her stool by the fire, pen poised over notebook.

Emily smiled and snuggled her face into Agatha’s pristine white fur, all memories of Mr. Thompson and his loathing forgotten. “Capital! Wherever shall we go?”

“Well, let’s have a look.”

The waning afternoon passed in a most pleasant fashion, the three girls poring over the tomes that Molly and Maude had been stashing in the linen closet for just such an occasion. They looked first at writers who consistently wrote about one place – Paul Auster could be nice, but Emily and Molly had done New York to death. There were always the Brontës, but the girls were hoping to go a little farther afield than Haworth. Emily immediately voted for the ‘moveable feast’ of Paris, but Molly curtailed that by reminding her that she’d already been, and that Hemingway generally wasn’t all that keen on adjectives. And Emily was quite fond of adjectives. Maude drew out an old paperback Steinbeck, assuring them that Agatha could take the place of the poodle in “Travels with Charley”, but, once again, Emily and Molly had ‘done’ America. Molly piped up in a small wistful voice that Evelyn Waugh wrote several nice bits about Venice, but that was two strikes for Molly – one, she’d been twice already, and two, it was well-known in the Poppycock offices that a certain financial adviser was going to be attending a conference in Venice shortly, on money and its discontents. The idea was put down quickly.

Italy came up quite frequently, though, from DH Lawrence’s “Sea and Sardinia” (everyone was a bit worried it would turn out like most of Lawrence’s writing, and the trip would be quite depressing) to Hilaire Belloc’s “The Path to Rome”. Although the girls were amused by a blurb they read – “A ramble by foot from central France to Rome” – it was generally agreed that they wanted a trip with altogether less walking involved.

The girls hemmed and hawed, reading their way from one continent to another and back again. They read EB White in New York and James Joyce in Italy, Alain de Botton all over, and Italo Calvino invisible 13th century cities. They were quite close to chucking the whole idea after happening upon Xavier de Maistre’s “Journey around My Room”, as it would save a lot of money and hassle. But they all needed a break from the three, sometimes four hours they spent in Poppycock up to five times a week. Their nerves were quite raw from the two calls Maude took a day before unplugging the damned thing. They required rest and rejuvenation, a journey of adventure and romance that wouldn’t always necessitate the perfect adjective, a time wherein no one would ask if the murdered should end up being the obvious serial killer or his mousy librarian sister.

They had retreated to the house for the evening, feeling a bit defeated. Every time they thought they had a destination pinned down, someone pointed out that they were thinking of what the place had been like in the 1930s, and it was now an undeniable tourist trap. Or sometimes they realized that the place had never existed at all. Maude was in the process of making her famous rejuvenating stew, and everyone felt their spirits lift a bit as the aromas wafted about the house. The doorbell rang.

“My good ladies, I’ve brought the late post,” Mr. Periwinkle called from the foyer. He was apt to let himself in with his key from now and then. They had given it to him some time previously; you could never be sure the girls weren’t having a nap, and they did so hate to miss a fresh manuscript.

“Oh, Mr. Periwinkle, we are utterly undone,” Emily sighed wearily. “We do fear that our days will go on in this pattern of drudgery, and searching out the sunshine has proved fruitless. Is there anything in that bundle of envelopes that might save us, or are our days to continue in this endless tedium?”

“Why, professor,” Mr. Periwinkle looked on her in amazement. “I’ve never known you to be so down. Let’s just have a look, shall we? I’m sure something will turn up to ease your troubles.”

Well, the first envelope was not encouraging. It was a ridiculously heavy envelope from Nicholas Sparks. They didn’t even deign to open it, having been suckered into that before – he generally tried to entice them with a couple of Thomas Kinkade drawings, thinking that would somehow convince them to liven up one of his saccharine romance novels. The last time he’d sent one, Maude actually fainted in embarrassment. No. They would not be opening this envelope. Mr. Periwinkle fetched the fire tongs, and Molly disposed of it appropriately, and it ended up making quite a companionable little blaze.

The evening post seemed to go from bad to worse, with miserable contributions from Dan Brown, Janet Evanovich, and Danielle Steele. These missives all remained unopened, and the Poppycock kitchens were toasty warm by the time they reached the last letter. The girls looked at each other gravely as Molly held the last unopened envelope, which had a curious postmark and no return address. Mr. Periwinkle solemnly unsheathed the letter opener given to him by Umberto Eco in thanks for carrying to and fro those weighty scribblings of his. The letter opener originally belonged to Patrick Henry, who had pretended to stab himself with it after his famous speech. Signor Eco knew that Mr. Periwinkle was something of a history buff in his spare time. The venerable postman handed it to Molly with a flourish.

She carefully slit the top open and pulled out a single piece of parchment. Perching a pair of glasses (previous owner: Sylvia Plath) atop her button nose, she read aloud: “To the Honorable Professors De Busque and P’ohlig, and the Esteemed Maude Mukopadhyay.”

There was a strangled noise from Mr. Periwinkle, who never failed to giggle when he heard Maude’s last name. Molly continued.

“Thought you could use a bit of a getaway. If you overtire yourselves, who will be left to write the great literature that this world has come accustomed to expect from you? You leave tomorrow for three weeks on the Orient Express. Don’t bother packing, all will be provided. Anything you want, you must simply ask. Please enjoy yourselves, you certainly deserve it. Signed, a Friend.”

The girls, and indeed Mr. Periwinkle, were flabbergasted. Who was this mysterious Friend? Could it be Ralph Fiennes, whom they’d recently helped with his memoirs, putting a most romantic spin on the Quantas incident? Or Ian McEwan, who, with their aid, had won the Booker Prize this year for two books, in an unprecedented tie with himself? The four puzzled over this conundrum for quite some time, passing round great bowls of stew before the cheerful hearth. They eventually retired in delirious anticipation of the next day’s journey, still confounded as to who would have given them such a glorious gift.

An Intruder at Poppycock

“Well, isn’t that nice?” Professor P’ohlig handed the certificate to Professor DeBusque. “The reason we’d never heard of the E.M. Forster Prize for Highly Important Contributions to Literature is because they’ve never given it before. We’re the first!”

Emily reached across the space between the two chaise lounges in the Poppycock office to grab the envelope as well, which she promptly shook upside down, causing a check to flutter out into Maude’s waiting hands. “Let me see? Oh! Well, if that amount of money doesn’t call for a celebration, I don’t know what does!”

Maude was sent out for provisions, and the girls both put on their Goggular Whatsits in the interim, getting down to the more serious part of Poppycock. Emily was nearly through perking up a new set of travel essays by Paul Theroux (a rush job, as he feared his popularity was on the wane after a few ill-placed elitist remarks in an interview), and Molly was hard at work on a manuscript by the great-grandson of James Joyce. Sadly, not altogether much of that famous Joycean talent had trickled down, but enough to make a go of it, and Poppycock was so devoted to the cultivation of new voices.

Suddenly, the door slammed open.

“Gracious, Maudie, what is it?” Molly said, not looking up, and continuing to nibble on the now damp end of her quill.

“No clotted cream left?” Emily didn’t look up either, sipping a glass of Madeira. But the silence was too prolonged to have come from Maude, and Emily looked towards the door. “Bloody hell.”

That made Molly look up as well. An ominous figure stood menacingly in the doorway, clothed entirely in black, complete with gaucho hat, cape, and Zorro mask. There was an awkward pause. “Whatever do you want?” Molly ventured.

The ominous person looked uneasily from Emily to Molly and back again. A handkerchief was removed from said persons’ pocket, and held up to the mouth in a ridiculous attempt to disguise the speaker’s voice.

“I – ahem – I command your services! Not for me – erm, not for myself do I ask for such a paltry thing, but for a writer, a great, great writer, who doesn’t even need your help, not at all!”


“Then may I enquire as to why you’re here, exactly?” Emily went back to her Theroux, dismissive in the manner of all the best people.

The figure winced. “I, em, it’s because…I…this author, you see, she won’t like my being here. The thing is, really, I’m trying to….sabotage her! I’m trying to sabotage her by getting you lot to muck up her latest manuscript, which I’ve stolen, you see, and then once you’re done buggering it, I’ll send it off to her agent, unbeknownst to her, like. And since they’ll publish any old codswallop she gives them, they won’t even look at it first. And her reputation will be simply ruined because of you two!”

Emily and Molly paid only the slightest bit of attention. “And why should we want to ruin this…I believe you said ‘great….great writer’ was it? Why should we be interested in her ruin, whoever she is? Why are you? And, pray tell, who are you” Emily made a little church of her daintily ink-stained hands and set her pretty chin lightly upon it.

The intruder may have had a dark complexion, but one could detect a flush at these words. “It’s because I’m a….I’m a terrible writer, you see, and I’m….jealous! That’s it! And one time she stole my boyfriend! Always nicking other people’s boyfriends, she is, and writing lovely, lovely books, and I’ve had enough! Never mind who I am.” The intruder folded their arms crossly across a flat chest.

Molly and Emily exchanged the tiniest smile.

“Well, then…sir?” There was an exaggerated harrumph from the person in the doorway. Molly’s tone became overtly, and insincerely, placatory. “Oh, I am sorry, madam. May we be permitted to…see the aforementioned manuscript?”

The cantankerous duelist looked as if she’d rather not come any closer, but as neither Molly nor Emily made any move to get up, she had no choice. She fumbled around the back of her cape, and pulled a large manila envelope out of, by all appearances, the seat of her trousers. She took a few mincing steps towards the desks, and threw it onto Molly’s, which was closer.

“Hmm….prolific little thing, at least.” Molly drew out the first of an obscene number of pages. “ ‘How I Intend to Win the Next E.M. Fors –‘ “

“Not that! That’s not for you!” The figure leapt back to the desk and snatched away the paper, crumpling it hastily and chucking it into the roaring fireplace. “That’s, uh, that’s not hers. She didn’t write that.”

“Oh of course not.” Emily rose from her desk, giving a delicate stroke to the cat, Agatha, who was, as usual, draped comfortably around her shoulders. She peeked at the title page. “Zadie Smith? Why, I thought she’d stopped writing! No one’s heard so much as a peep from her in years. Doesn’t that just take the biscuit! Do you really want us to ‘ruin’ her, as you say? Surely that wouldn’t be very charitable.” Molly and Emily turned expectant faces up to the intruder, like petals open up towards the sun.

“….Well…don’t…ruin it….Maybe you could just…change an adjective here and there, or…maybe thicken up the plot a bit? And there’s this one soppy character I can’t do anything with…that, em, she seems to be having a bit of a hard time with.” The intruder looked down glumly and sighed. “Maybe you could actually just fix it up a bit. It’s, em, it’s not very good. And as much as I don’t like her very much, I don’t want her to be embarrassed.”

The girls nodded understandingly.

“Of course,” said Emily. “We’d be only too happy to help. I suppose we shouldn’t….mention this to anyone? Not unless the novel is successful, naturally. And then we’d require only a small mention.”

The intruder brightened. “Oh yes, ta very much. That would be smashing. Brilliant. Smashingly brilliant. Well, I’ve got to go now. And remember, not a word to anyone!” And the intruder was gone.

She left the door open though, and that’s when Maude came back in, staggering under the weight of the enormous lunch basket. “Who was that in the ridiculous costume? Don’t tell me it was Zadie again.”

Molly shut the door firmly with a smile as Poppycock Enterprises shut down for the day in a mood of self-congratulations. “Who else?”

Love Comes to Poppycock, Part Deux

“Oh, Dame Dench, of course they’ll help! ....Oh, I daresay they won’t require such an astronomical fee, either….no, no, you just pop round when it’s convenient….Of course…Looking forward to seeing you again….Bye-bye!” Maude had only just hung up the phone when the door bell rang, and she jumped up to answer it. It was Mr. Periwinkle, official Poppycock postman, and quite a jolly half hour ensued, with Mr. Periwinkle sorting the mail of the day, Emily serving her special scones, and Molly telling again the old favorite about the night that Martin Amis’ expensive teeth fell out at a fancy dress party.

“….shrieked like a little girl and ran from the room. And after a very tense silence, Julian piped up with “And to think, that is why my wife was sacked.” ”

“I say, Emilia, I never tire of that story, do you?” Mr. Periwinkle dabbed at his eyes with the offered silk handkerchief (a gift to Poppycock from the Victoria and Albert Museum for Exemplary Contributions to Literature and Art, its previous owner had been Anne Brontë – sad little thing, she’d cried on it quite a lot).

“Dear Periwinkle, what’s that little note hanging from your pocket? Is that for us?” Emily snatched it, looked at the return address, and jumped gleefully onto her chaise lounge. “It’s from Mr. Denning! It’s for Molly!”

Molly turned a particular shade of crimson, even though she always asserted that she did not blush. She made a grab for it, but Emily had already opened it. There was a palpable tension in the room as she began to read, for everyone knew just how Molly felt about Mr. Denning, Poppycock’s avuncular financial advisor.

“My dear Professor P’ohlig, I do hope you will forgive the liberty I plan to take of paying a call to the Poppycock head office this afternoon at 4:30. I have urgent business to discuss with you, and you alone. Yours most financially, Mr. Denning.”

There was a thick silence for the second time that afternoon.

“Maudie,” Molly said slowly, in a voice that seemed to come from a long way away. “What time is it?”

Four heads swiveled to look at the antique grandfather clock, a gift from the estate of Graham Greene, just in time for the half hour to chime, coinciding with a fresh ring of the doorbell. There was momentary stillness, and then all sprung into action. Mr. Periwinkle scooped up the remains of tea and slid it all quietly into the dumbwaiter. Emily tossed Molly the emergency lipstick, and Molly applied it with a shaking hand as she arranged herself prettily behind her desk. (Luckily, she never cleaned anything up, so it always looked like she was hard at work.) Maude gave “The Way We Live Now” a tug, and she and Mr. Periwinkle disappeared into the house. Emily gave Molly a look, Molly gave Emily a nod, and Emily opened the door.

“Why, Mr. Denning! What joy.” Emily took Mr. Denning’s Italian-suited elbow and brought him inside.

“Professor DeBusque,” he said, giving an almost imperceptible bow. “Always a pleasure. And Professor P’ohlig, “he turned smoothly towards Molly’s desk, “Delighted, as usual.”

“I’m afraid I can’t stay, Mr. Denning,” Emily was backing towards the open passageway, “Maudie is down with a bad tummy again.”

“What, again? Every time I visit, it seems that child has a bad tummy.” A smile crinkled the corners of Mr. Denning’s mouth. Molly turned that shade of crimson again.

“Yes, doesn’t it? Perhaps we’ll get a doctor in one of these days. Do ring if you need anything…” Emily threw the last remark over her shoulder and shut the door to the house quietly behind her.

The only sound was the steady tick of the grandfather clock.

“Professor P’ohlig….Molly….” Mr. Denning said in a strange voice, pulling up a chair next to her desk. Her cheeks were beginning to feel hot and uncomfortable. “There’s something I want to….to ask you.”

“Y-yes, Mr. Denning. As you said in your note. What might it be?” Molly looked down demurely through her lashes, which she’d unfortunately remembered to coat in quite a bit of bright blue mascara that morning. She prayed that they weren’t clumpy.

“You see, the thing is, for quite some time I’ve wanted to…..” He bent his head, and Molly thought wickedly how nice his short red hair must feel. She was quite sure she was about to find out, and held her breath just a tiny bit. “…I’ve wanted to write my financial memoirs. You know, just about my lifelong relationship to, well, all things financial. Would you…would you help me?”

Molly let out that breath.

“Me?” She said in a rather small voice. “Not, not Professor DeBusque? You want…my help?”

“Well, yes. I read your recent work on the new Rupert Murdoch memoir, and it was simply dazzling. Your style, your wit…..oh, would you help me?” He clasped her hands in his.

Molly thought for a moment, looking into Mr. Denning’s blue-grey eyes. This was so nearly the moment she’d always dreamt of. And for now, that was near enough.

“Of course, Mr. Denning. You do realize,” she said somewhat coyly, “that we will have to spend an awful lot of time together.”

“Oh, I don’t think that will be a problem,” he said, with a hint of a twinkle in his eye. “But really, isn’t it a bit warm in here? You two do go through such an awful lot of coal in a week, at such a cost! It doesn’t grow on trees, you know.”

Molly smothered a giggle. Mr. Denning would persist in avuncularity to the very end, even when he was being mildly romantic.

“Yes, Mr. Denning, we should try to be thriftier, I expect.”

They arranged a time for their first writing session, and with one last handshake, he was gone. Molly only had a moment alone with her thoughts before Maude, Emily, and Mr. Periwinkle burst back into the firelit room.

“Oh, congratulations, old girl!” Mr. Periwinkle shouted. Apparently, a good deal of sherry had been poured in a very short time.

“Where is it?” Maudie squealed, grabbing Molly’s left hand.

In the flurry of excitement, Molly and Emily looked at each other.

“He wants me to help him write his financial memoirs,” Molly said, with just a hint of sadness.

“Well,” Emily said bravely, linking her elbow through Molly’s, “Then it’s my help he’ll need writing that marriage proposal!”

Emily always did know how to bring things round a bit sunnier, and as they closed the office for the day, Molly had almost forgotten her disappointment, in the presence of her true friends. They managed to pack Mr. Periwinkle off home, and Maudie whipped up a delicious supper of cold lobster, the preparation of which required absolutely no coals whatsoever.

A Poppycockian Romance

“Oh dear,” Molly sighed. “I just don’t know what’s wrong with me today, I can’t seem to come up with any of the right words!”

“Is there anything I can get you?” Maudie beetled over to Molly’s chaise and laid a hand on her forehead, checking for signs of fever.

“Oh no, dear, just something that stops me feeling like my brain is falling out!” Molly laughed. “It’s just this Naipaul, I’m sure. One always must worry over him, lest he writes something nasty in his next book. I just can’t seem to get anywhere with it.”

Emily watched this interchange with interest, suddenly jumping up, giving Trollope a pull, and running off down the secret staircase.

“Whatever could it mean?” Maude and Molly looked at each other in surprise, as Emily was usually so good about delineating her purposes. But they didn’t see her again for three quarters of an hour.

* * *

“Here! Try that on for size!” Emily, wisps of hair flying attractively every-which-way, placed a most peculiar object down on top of Molly’s enormous stack of papers. Molly and Maude peered closely at the thing, and Maude prodded it tentatively with a finger.

“What….well, what is it?”

Emily grabbed it and affixed it onto Molly’s head like glasses, with a strap going all the way round her head. “I call them “Anti-ocular-suction Goggular Whatsits! Look, they’ve got windshield wipers for sad books, rear-view mirrors for disgruntled authors sneaking up behind you, insta-tint technology for easy adjustment by the fireplace, night vision in case you can’t be bothered with the lamp, and x-ray vision for….well, for fun.”

“Emily! You’re the cleverest, there’s even glitter on the frames! Let’s try them out, Maudie, fetch me the Naipaul!” Maude duly fetched the manuscript which had cause all the trouble, and she and Emily held their breath as Molly adjusted first one lens and then the other, self-consciously patting the decorative willy-boppers.

Silence. And then….

“A pen, Maudie! A pen! It’s like I can feel the floodgates opening – this sentence is all wrong!” Molly shouted, scribbling away. “Emily, you’re a genius! I mean, I always knew you were, but you’re even more of one that I’d thought! Oh, this must all go, V.S., I’ll have you rewritten if it’s the last thing I do!”

* * *

And of course she did, and of course he won all sorts of prizes, and of course he forgot to thank them at all. But everyone who was anyone knew, so it was all alright. But there was another Great Thing that came out of what would come to be affectionately known as The Naipaul Incident…

* * *


“It’s really quite remarkable, they’re selling like hotcakes,” Maude said into the phone. “No, I’m afraid we only have a few for personal use around here….no, we try to stay away from the warehouse, you know, merchants and all….oh no you don’t want to go to all that trouble, Ms. Lessing, I’m sure we can just send you a pair!....yes, we’ve heard about your creative…difficulties….since the Nobel. Well, I have every confidence that this will clear all of that right up!...I will give them your best, and you look for the Goggular Whatsits to turn up in just a few days!”

“Maudie dear, I do believe that it’s time for tea,” Molly pronounced. As Maude ran off through the passageway, Molly remarked to Emily, “I say, I was just reading an article in the business pages about how much Poppycock has profited from the Goggular Whatsits – we might just close the literary side altogether and live off the effects quite comfortably!”

Molly and Emily smiled at each other, because they would never close the literary side of Poppycock. Just then, the bell rang.

“Odd,” Emily mused, “It’s not time for the post. Do you hear a…buzzing?”

She opened the door and took a quick step back as a motorized wheelchair zipped through neatly, swiveling around to face her as she turned and closed the door.

“I am Stephen Hawking,” a voice intoned, “And I should like to marry you.”

Emily’s eyes widened to such an extent that it looked like she was wearing the Whatsits, with the microscopic function on.

“Your invention has dazzled me. I have created eighty three new theorems since I bought the Whatsit. I cannot live without you. Last night I found a gaseous anomaly in the universe, and I have named it Emily’s Voorwerp. Please come home with me and be my wife.”

Emily and Molly were too stunned to speak for a long moment, but Emily, with her keen awareness of manners, didn’t let the situation progress beyond a mild awkwardness.

“My dear Mr. Hawking,” she said gently, leaning down to his height, “You can’t imagine how honored I am to receive such a proposal from you, one of the great minds of our, or, I believe, any era. But surely you, of all people, will understand when I tell you, and with not a little regret, that I cannot accept. I am simply married to my work, Mr. Hawking, and as it is the esteem of those such as yourself that I strive for, marriage, as such, would simply prove too much of a distraction for my goals.”

“I love you anyway, Emilia DeBusque. Goodbye.” And Emily opened the door, and out he zipped.

There was another protracted silence.

“Molly?”

“Yes, Emily?”

“What is a Voorwerp?”

“I believe that it’s Dutch for ‘object’….may I say that you handled that beautifully?”

“Yes, I thought I did rather well myself.” The girls stretched themselves out on their respective chaises, and looked contemplatively into the fire. Maude burst in with the tea.

“Did I miss anything? I thought I heard the oddest buzzing noise,” Maude shook her head as she poured.

“Oh, nothing of consequence dear, nothing of consequence.” Emily smiled and took her tea cup.

And so passed another afternoon at Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd.

Poppycock Enterprises and the Mystery of the Missing Mimeograph Machine

"Good morning, Maude!” Professor Emilia DeBusque, ever her cheerful morning self, yawned and stretched as she cranked open the kitchen window. “I trust you slept well?”

There was no response.

“Maudie?”

“Is something missing?”

“Apart from my omelet and cappuccino?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll get to that directly.”

“No bother, my dear. Just as soon – hell-o, I think something IS awry! Whatever could it mean?” Emily scurried over to the corner of the kitchen that Maude was peering at so intently.

“What are we looking at?” Professor Moll E. P’Ohlig tied the sash of her vintage Japanese kimono and stared at the spot which was suddenly the subject of so much interest.

“What used to be here is what I can’t figure out. Do either of you remember?” Emily scuffed a velvet slipper against the large rectangle on the floor which had apparently been covered up until quite recently. “Maudie, you’ll have to be a bit more diligent with the dusting.”

“Might it have been books?” Molly offered helpfully.

“Well, any book that big would have been expensive, and we never use the expensive ones as furniture.” Emily looked at the wall above the rectangle. “Look! You can see there was something here, because you can see the line where the sunlight faded the wallpaper above.”

“I remember!” Molly clapped her hands in excitement. “It was the mimeograph machine that we purchased at that auction in Paris! It used to belong to Anais Nin! We never used it!”

Congratulations were given all round, and morning coffee was especially grand with the addition of Monday morning (noon, actually) mimosas. There was a lull in conversation until Emily said,

“But where do think it’s gone?”

* * *

Near two o’clock, the girls had been in the office for quite some time, but it was agreed between everyone that something felt off. They’d absolutely no idea what had happened to the mimeograph.

“Look, we’ve only just noticed it missing, so it must have occurred quite recently. I know we never took much notice of it before, but I think it must have only just gone.” Emily delicately nibbled at a madeleine cookie she’d dunked into her early afternoon tea.

“What did we do last night…?” Molly pulled an extra knitting needle from her hair and thoughtfully purled three stitches. Emily wrinkled her brow.

“Dinner party?” Maude looked up from “War and Peace”. “Yes, I think so – lots of friends, weren’t there? We even had a theme – ‘I Feel Sad that I haven’t Won the Booker in a While’, you know, drumming up a bit of business.”

“Right as usual, Maude! Now where did I put that guest list…” Emily reached into the impressive sheaf of papers on the incidental table by her chaise, and whisked out a sheet of the heavy parchment she used for lists. Sliding on her elegant spectacles, she read “Michael Ondaatje, A.S. Byatt, Roddy Doyle, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala….that’s funny, isn’t it, Molly?

Molly chewed at a thumbnail. “Huh. Didn’t we set table for SIX guests last night?”

Emily nodded slowly. “Wasn’t there a…Scottish accent at table last night?”

The two looked at each other and then at Maude, who stood up and shouted, “WELSH!”

“No, it was Scottish, I said, Maudie – oh IRVINE Welsh! I don’t remember inviting him…he’s never won the Booker, I’m sure…..” Emily drifted off into a little think, curled up in the chaise.

“Maudie, I think it’s naptime. Would you please ring Mr. Welsh and see if he wouldn’t mind calling later in the evening?” Molly took Emily’s arm, and together they drowsed off back towards the house, each carrying bundles of words to work on as they lounged in their respective boudoirs.


* * *

“Now Mr. Welsh, we very much appreciate your forthright nature in bringing back the mimeograph, but what we’d like to understand is WHY.” Emily was always the one who had to adopt the sterner nature with the authors, Molly was too inclined to let their creative genius wander whither it would. Molly was also the one who had to answer midnight calls from the police and go collect people from the drunk tank. (Martin Amis, you know who we’re talking about.)

Irvine stood silently a moment, and then, steeling his resolve, rolled up his sleeve.

-- Y’see, lassies, I’ve only just stopped the smack. I cannae go back to it, so. But I needed somethin’ for the….interim period, ye ken? As a wee boy, I always loved the mimeo, the way it smelled right after they’d bring it you, ye know?

“Irvine, we can’t have you getting high off of our mimeograph machine! Think of the example it sets for Maude!” Emily was peeved, there was no doubt about it. She stamped her delicate foot prettily in an approximation of rage.

-- I ken that, Professor, I do. But ye see, I’ve no been bloody writin’, no for weeks, since I stopped the smack. And I cannae have that if I’m ever gonna get the prize.

Irvine sank down onto the floor. Molly and Emily gave a knowing look to Maude who ran into the kitchen.

“Irvine dear, I think we’ve got just the thing for you. Is that your manuscript in the bag? You give that to us, and go right up to the guest suite. Maudie will be along in a minute with something I think might help, and there’s plenty of extra notebooks. I think you’ll find your writer’s block unblocking quite soon,” Emily handed Irvine his fisherman’s cap as the two girls shooed him upstairs. They looked at each other, and then raced to the front hallway where Welsh had left his bag. As they reached it at the same time, they decided to each take a half and then switch back round. They crept through the secret passage to the office, lit the fire, and read each other the best bits out loud.


* * *


“ ’SCOTSMAN NABS TOP LITERARY PRIZE: CREDITS WORD GIRLS’. Well, I just knew that he would!” Emily patted the newspaper in front of her. “Congratulations, Molly, he couldn’t have done it without us.”

“Yes, congratulations to you too. And to Maude, I think.” Molly tossed Maude a skein of yarn to wind. Maude blushed. “Oh come now, dear, there’s very little chance I would have been able to coerce him into drinking it. He knows all of my tricks already. By the way, would you like some, Emily?”

“Oh yes please,” Emily held out her glass and Maude filled it and two more to the brim with the delightful new beverage that had gotten Irvine back in top form – Rioja Java - “You only feel like you’re on drugs.”©

“Cheers, ladies, to another one! Long live Poppycock!”

Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd.

"Poppycock Enterprises, how may I be of service?....Mm-hm….yes…I see…Oh my…..well, that would be a matter for which I would need to refer you to Professor DeBusque…..that’s correct, we do not accept emails at Poppycock….are you ready? The address is Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd., Tardis House, near Truro Cathedral, Cornwall SE9…Yes, that’s right, Professor Emilia DeBusque. She will get you an answer directly by post. Thank you so much.”

Maude hung up the receiver of the Victorian candlestick telephone and leaned back into her cozy chair, tucking her bare brown feet neatly underneath her.

“Emily?”

“Yes, dear?” Emily looked up from her desk.

“You should be receiving a tricky plot synopsis in the next few days. Fellow seems to have done quite well commercially, but now he wants the Man Booker.”

“Heavens, not another one!” Emily took off her spectacles and rubbed her eyes.

“It’s that blasted article from the Times! We’ll have to be taken from the phone book, I think. I know that you don’t mind answering it, Maudie, but it’s cutting into your reading time. And if you have to explain to Mr. King one more time that he will never be eligible for the Booker, well I might just have to get on the phone myself!” Molly threw back the last sip of her latte with a flourish, placing the empty cup on a trivet that had been a gift from Juliette Winterson. After numerous attempts to woo each of the co-owners of Poppycock, she’d finally accepted that they simply weren’t lesbians, and she’d since looked for other ways to display her affection. On her last visit, Maude had mentioned that both girls could be so forgetful when it came to their antique desks (Molly’s had belonged to Thomas Hardy, and Emily’s to Elswyth Thane), and she was worried that their random placement of hot beverages and wine glasses might someday result in nasty rings on the furniture. Juliette’s gift had been coasters made from tiles removed from the floor of Tintern Abbey. The girls were trying to remember to use them.

“I don’t think we need resort to anything quite so drastic!” Emily placed a hand over her heart. “Gracious. I may just require a small session on the fainting couch now!”

“Naturally, Emily. You don’t have any rush projects at the moment anyway, do you?”

“Oh,” Emily said, falling into a half-hearted swoon on the chaise, “Just a bit of plot for Ian McEwan, but we’re not lunching again until next week. It’s nothing tricky anyway, he always loves everything we do. Have you got anything on at the moment?”

“Sir Salman wanted me to look over a few hundred pages for word discrimination, and we’re having drinks tomorrow night, but that’s really just to catch up. He always give us so much time for these projects, he’s such a lamb. It’s not even that tricky, you can always tell just what word he would have chosen if he thought just a few moments longer. Do you remember,” Molly chuckled, retreating to her own chaise near the crackling fireplace, “How upset John got the first time we did a bit of work for him?”

“Yes! Going on an on about ‘the Banville style’, and how maybe we should just take over for him entirely, if we were going to write his books so well.” Emily held out a hand and Maude immediately popped a marshmallow and kebab stick into her hand for easy roasting. “Maudie, what’s that hanging off the corner of Mr. Darcy’s miniature?”

“Oh, that’s the award for Excellence in Literary Pursuits that came in from the Queen yesterday. I know we don’t like to toot our own horn, but….well, it’s the Queen.”

“Quite right, Maude. We’ll leave it where it is. Have you written any more on your memoir of being a stolen child bride?” Emily tucked the lap blanket in around her knees and delicately nibbled on the piping hot marshmallow.

Maude blushed. “Only a bit. But I have a meeting later with Sir Salman’s agent, he’d like to see a bit.”

“Wonderful!” Molly held out her hand and Maude handed her a glass of red wine. “I – “

The bell by the door clanged.

“Mail!” everyone chimed in together. Maude leapt from her chair, slipped on her slippers, donned a wooly cardigan that Molly had finished yesterday, and answered the door.

“Too much for the mail slot again, Mr. Periwinkle?”

“Yes, yes, Maudie, once again, you are the most popular customers on my route!” Mr. Periwinkle began pulling things out of his mail cart as Maude closed the door behind him.

“Sherry, Mr. Periwinkle?” Emily proffered a glass, which was gratefully accepted.

“And you’re my favorite customers as well, no doubt! Let’s see what we’ve brought today….seems to be…manuscripts, I suppose, quite thick…from Peter Carey…Julian Barnes….more from Mr. Amis, goodness, he has been quite prolific lately, hasn’t he? And then there are the usual gifts….” Maude ran back and forth in the tiny office, handing each parcel to either Emily or Molly, whoever worked most closely with the particular author. If it was a new commission, then Maude read the query herself, and decided whose talents were better suited. Once the numerous boxes had been sorted out and opened (maracas from Oscar Hijuelos, the monthly bouquet of dried cornflowers from the estate of E.M. Forster, another rare early edition of Wilde’s poetry from Stephen Fry, quite a nice George Eliot letter from Zadie Smith, and a case of champagne from Nabokov’s son, with the first edition of “Laura”, in which the dedication read “To the inimitable Professors Emilia DeBusque and Moll E. P’ohlig, without whom this publication would have never been possible – long live Poppycock!”) Mr. Periwinkle, having finished his sherry, took his leave until tomorrow.

Emily and Molly sat for an hour or so in the drowsy glow of the fire, marking manuscripts and scribbling in the margins, Maude reading but always at the ready to fill a glass or crank the gramophone.

Around 2 Molly could no longer suppress a yawn, and Emily followed suit.

“What to you say we pack it in for the afternoon?” Emily stretched and pushed her glasses on top of her head.

“Capital idea, Professor. After a nap, I was thinking of another long session of whatever miniseries we seem to be on now.”

“Brilliant. Order in?”

“Of course. Let us repair to our rooms and meet again at seven.”

The girls rose and Maude removed a copy of “The Way We Live Now” from the shelf, thereby releasing the secret door which led to the estate house they all called home. Maude lingered a few moments more, to put out the fire and tidy up, but soon Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd. was in bed for the day, ready to wake again in the late morning for another day of diligent word-smithing.